You say that you’re cautious with REITs due to the headwind caused by the rising interest rates. I’m with you, but at the same time earlier you said that you don’t expect the 10yrs yield to go over 3% for a long time. Now we’re nearly there. Does it mean that REITs become more attractive for you (like I see it), or you’re still cautious for some reason?
But what if ABC evaluates its prospective investments based on the return on investment percentage instead? In this case, the Idaho investment center is currently generating a return on investment of 18%, so making a new investment that will generate a 16% return will reduce the facility's overall return on investment to 17.8% ($196,000 total profit / $1.1 million total investment) - which might be grounds for rejecting the proposed investment.

I just wanted to say how nice it is to see such a positive exchange between strangers on the Internet. Seriously, not only was this article (list) motivating and well-drafted, the tiny little community of readers truly were a pleasant crescendo I found to be the cause of an inward smile. Thank you, everyone, and good luck to you all with your passive income efforts!! 🙂

I’ve now only got a SF rental condo and a Lake Tahoe vacation rental in my real estate rental portfolio. Although I miss my old house, I certainly don’t miss paying $23,000 a year in property taxes, another mortgage, dealing with leaks and managing terrible tenants. I drove by the other day and couldn’t believe how much noisier and busier the street was than where I currently live. I wouldn’t be comfortable raising my son there.
I’ve got a $185,000 CD generating 3% interest coming due. Although the return is low, it’s guaranteed. The CD gave me the confidence to investment more aggressively in risk over the years. My online interest income has come down since I aggressively deployed some capital at the beginning of the year and again during the February market correction. You’ll see these figures in my quarterly investment income update.

If you are a photographer looking to diversify your income stream, putting together styled stock photo packages can be lucrative. For example, a package of 15 wedding-themed stock photos for $10. You can then market this to any bloggers or businesses who are in the wedding business for their use (photos of different engagement rings styles are super popular). Through this method, it’s possible to make a continuous stream of income off of photos you’ve taken once (similar to a licensing deal).

One of the most appealing options, particularly for millennials, would be #12 on your list (create a Blog/Youtube channel). The videos can be about anything that interests you, from your daily makeup routine (with affiliate links to the products you use), recipes (what you eat each day) or as you mention, instructional videos (again with affiliate links to the products you use). Once you gain a large following and viewership, you can earn via Adsense on YouTube.
I knew I didn’t want to work 70 hours a week in finance forever. My body was breaking down and I was constantly stressed. As a result, I started saving every other paycheck and 100% of my bonus since my first year out of college in 1999. By the time 2012 rolled around, I was earning enough passive income (~$78,000) to negotiate a severance and be free.
I am 30 years old and am retired. Previously, I made a modest salary as an Army officer. I own three duplexes and a quadplex in central Texas (10 rental units in all), and each of the properties provide me with net rental yields in excess of 15%. The last deal is actually an infinite return as my partner paid the down payment in return for a 50/50 split on a property that would otherwise provide a net rental yield of 18%. The above net rental yields also factor in an excellent property management team who manages my properties while I pursue other investment opportunities. To date, I have never interacted with any of my tenants nor have I ever had to personally deal with any maintenance issues.
It seems like common sense but it’s so easy to rely on your day job income to pay for everything. I used to get paid a lot of money to go into work and sit at my desk for 8 hours a day and then go home. No manual labor required, no staying late hours(in my case at least) and a pretty low stress environment. I loved my job and without fail, every two weeks on the dot, a nice fat paycheck would show up in my bank account. All I had to do was show up at work every day and I was pretty much guaranteed to get paid.

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Active income, on the other hand, involves earning money in exchange for a service. It could be a salary, an hourly wage, commissions, or tips. It’s essentially a trade of your time for a fixed dollar amount. Most people choose to live this way, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as you understand that there will be a limit to how much money you can realistically earn.

I just can’t seem to get my head around creating my own online product. When you talk about it, you make it sound like its mostly just about putting in the time and plugging away at it. Problem is I can never seem to come up with any ideas for a site or product that seem remotely unique or compelling or that I have any special knowledge about. The stuff I do know about is pretty commodity type knowledge that can mostly be found on thousands of sites on the internet already. Any tips on discovering what your “unique angle” is? I mean, you have a pretty compelling and somewhat unique personal story of working on wall street and then walking away at a young age.
In the summer of 2017, I first reinvested $250,000 into a RealtyShares Domestic Equity Fund. I already had $250,000 invested with them and I liked the projects they were choosing. After spending the rest of the year making low ball offers on SF real estate and losing, I invested another $300,000 in the fund in December 2017. Given 100% of my real estate crowdfunding are equity investments, there is no set monthly dividend. Each of the 12 investments in the fund have different timetables and objectives. I’m simply estimating that I’ll earn $9,600 for the year.
Lending Club is a platform where you can lend your money to other people. You’re the bank. Each note is only $25, so you can invest $1,000 and lend money to 40 people. There are many grades of loan (from safest to riskiest) and investors earn, on average, between 5% and 7% annualized returns. For more information, check out Investing and Making Money with Lending Club Peer-to-Peer Lending and my real money Lending Club Portfolio.
One word of advice, and something I intend to do once I have the money saved up, is to build or buy out property that can support apartments or townhomes. One tough mistake some people make is buying a pair of homes to rent out and they get a nice $2,000-$3,000 a month but that’s it. Buying a house is expensive and the rental prices keep lower income families from potentially coming to you with their money to rent. If you have an acre to work with (more or less is OK too) you should be talking to a contractor to build apartments or townhomes. You will make a little less per unit BUT your audience grows significantly because now you can have college students, single parents, older folks, etc. all able to afford your rental units AND instead of capturing one $1,000-$1,500 a month payments, you can probably charge $700 a month per unit (or more, depending on the market) and build maybe 3, 4, 5, 10 units for the price of a home or two and now you’re making something like $2,100-$10,000 a month. It all depends on what you have to invest but if you’ve got $250,000+ I’d highly suggest you talk to a bank/investor that can get you in touch with a good contractor to build on a property and get permits and take out a matching $250,000 loan (I’ve read that $500,000 is plenty to build a good amount of apartments to start) and you can fill up your apartments and make a killing every month. You’ll have more tenants to deal with but if you’re competitive with your pricing you won’t have a hard time keeping tenants or replacing them.
All written content on this site is for information purposes only. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of AWM, unless otherwise specifically cited. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources and no representations are made by our firm as to another parties’ informational accuracy or completeness. All information or ideas provided should be discussed in detail with an advisor, accountant or legal counsel prior to implementation.
I also like the distinctions you make about the illusion of influence. I have control over most of my investments (real estate related) and have 10% in passive index funds. But I think as I continue to diversify, I like putting it into the two buckets of (1) I control (2) no control (stock market). I like that clarity. The illusion of control does add stress and hassle that detract from enjoying your life. Not worth extra returns to me.

Investing is arguably the easiest way to make passive income. The problem is most investments sound good in theory but don’t work out so well in practice. And if you don’t have much experience or access to capital, let alone the time to work it all out, it can seem more or less impossible. However, there is one smart way to invest that just might work. Continue reading >

Another great way to get started is to identify an area of interest you have. For instance, Robert Duff has been successful in building passive income by selling books on Amazon. Then, go out and start talking to people. Ask them, “What are you struggling with right now? What are your biggest pains? What’s something you wish existed that doesn’t?” That’ll give you some ideas about where to get started.

Do you know of a successful business that needs capital for expansion? If so, you can become something of a small-time angel investor and provide that needed capital. But rather than offering a loan to a business owner, you instead take an equity position in the business. In this way, the business owner will handle the day-to-day operations, while you will act as a silent partner who also participates in the profits of the business.
Nice update. It’s great to see a FIRE blogger that actually uses risk management and true diversification in his portfolio, as opposed to the bogelhead 3 and boilerplate bla bla bla. It’s also nice to see someone who doesn’t have to make “all the money” as opposed to enough money. The point of buying stocks bonds debt real estate (and yes commodities) is to buy the security they provide and understand the security they provide. Security is defined as “freedom from danger”. You buy security with money but you become secure by controlling risk. Maybe at some point you could write something from the point of view of risk management as opposed to overpaying for alpha with undue risk as the currency.
In the summer of 2017, I first reinvested $250,000 into a RealtyShares Domestic Equity Fund. I already had $250,000 invested with them and I liked the projects they were choosing. After spending the rest of the year making low ball offers on SF real estate and losing, I invested another $300,000 in the fund in December 2017. Given 100% of my real estate crowdfunding are equity investments, there is no set monthly dividend. Each of the 12 investments in the fund have different timetables and objectives. I’m simply estimating that I’ll earn $9,600 for the year.
"That's certainly true for entrepreneurs, but even for people who work inside a company, cultivating a side income stream of some sort — whether it's having an Etsy store on the side, or doing a little bit of coaching or having a workshop now and then, whatever it is, doing a little bit of paid speaking — having that sideline gives you additional protection against uncertainty and also has a lot of other benefits.
With that being said it's pretty hard to get traffic quickly, but you've heard of Amazon FBA you can sell products on their website and basically steal their traffic for your own benefit. This is my main source of income, it's completely online, I get a lot of questions like "do the products go to my house?" no, you never see them. and for the amount of effort I put in, I mean it's pretty easy honestly, I hate to say that though. Nothing gets rich quick, it does require work) but in terms of every way to make money online, this is probably the fastest and most scalable way to generate full-time income in my opinion. Basically what I do is source products from China in bulk (DIRT CHEAP) let's say I buy 200 units for the price of $2.50, and I send it to Amazon's fulfillment centers and I list those products for $15, I make a $12.50 Profit Per Unit I sell. I have a lot of days where I make $150 a day, I sometimes wake up in the morning with 50$ profit, etc. I've searched a lot of different ways of making money online, (cash apps and surveys included). Affiliate Marketing works, but like I said before, you need traffic and that's tough to get for an average person.
Whether you know how to flawlessly apply eye makeup or build a wooden shelving unit, you can create an online course or video for others to follow. Websites like Udemy and Teachable allow you to build a course, such as how to learn a new language or write a cover letter. Once you build your course and set the price, there’s little work to be done. You’ll receive residual income from each person who signs up to take your course.
In the residual income model, the intrinsic value of a share of common stock is the sum of book value per share and the present value of expected future pershare residual income. In the residual income model, the equivalent mathematical expressions for intrinsic value of a common stock are V0=B0+∑t=1∞RIt(1+r)t=B0+∑t=1∞Et−rBt−1(1+r)t=B0+∑t=1∞(ROEt−r)Bt−1(1+r)t

Build a list in a particular niche and tell them stories. Create a bond. Build a relationship with them. It's important. Then, when you've created a bit of culture, start marketing affiliate products or services to them that you think they might like. Just be sure that you personally vet out whatever it is that you're selling to avoid complaints if the product or service falls short.

For those of you who don’t want to come up with a $220,000 downpayment and a $900,000 mortgage to buy the median home in SF or NYC, who don’t want to deal with tenants or remodeling, and who wants to not do any work after the investment is made, check out Fundrise. They are my favorite real estate crowdsourcing company founded in 2012 and based in Washington DC. They are pioneers in the eREIT product offering and they’re raising an Opportunity Fund to take advantage of new tax favorable laws.
Truebill is an app that helps you save money by identifying recurring subscriptions and other bills and helping you cut costs by negotiating better rates and fees. One of their partnerships is with Acradia Power, which has the potential to save you up to 30% on your electric bill. It searches for better power rates in areas where competition is allowed, and it locks in the better prices for you.
The appeal of these passive income sources is that you can diversify across many small investments, rather than in a handful of large ones. When you invest directly in real estate, you have to commit a lot of capital to individual projects. When you invest in these crowdfunded investments, you can spread your money across many uncorrelated real estate ventures so individual investments don't cause significant issues.
Now, how do you do it? Building a passive income will require some work up front, but choosing a method that plays to your strengths will yield the most success, and it can even become a fun hobby! Have an aptitude for photography? License your photos to stock photography websites. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to invest? Learn how with a robo-advisor. No matter what your strengths are, we’ve gathered 35 ideas for different ways you can generate passive income and build your wealth.
My returns are based on full cash purchase of the properties, as it is hard to compare the attractiveness of properties at different price ranges when only calculating down payment or properties that need very little rehab/updates. I did think about the scores assigned to each factor, but I believe tax deductions are a SIGNIFICANT factor when comparing passive income steams.
I like the way each section has a template or pattern of a heading with a consistent combination of text and images. It does give some order to the huge of information you offer. But I was actually wondering why you did not make this an eBook instead of a blog post? Or create an outline the way Jim Wang of WalletHacks does at the beginning of his blog posts? I think it holds the reader’s attention especially when there is so much information to review and perhaps absorb.
Generating multiple streams of income can have a major impact on your finances. Even an extra income of $500 each month could go a long way towards paying down debt or increasing your investments. We often hear about the importance of diversifying our investments, but diversifying our income streams is just as important, particularly in difficult economic times.
I’ve never invested in real estate (except to live in), but am always intrigued by communities like FS who seem to have such a passion for it. My intrigue stems back to my earlier comments that the long term trends in appreciation in real estate are simply not very competitive versus equities, despite what Robert Kiyosaki had to say in his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Came to the U.S. as an immigrant in 1968 from a poor Asian country with only $100 in my pocket. Took advantange of 401-K savings plan by contributing 10% of my pay. My employer matched the first 6% savings (50 cents/dollar saved). Did not know anything about investment so 100% of 401-k money was invested in index 500. No other savings except 401-K. Retired in 1999 at 55 years old with about $1.2 million in 401-K and $450,000 lump sum pension which I rolled over to IRA. I invested this money in bonds and only buy equities (small cap index) whenever value drop to at least 50% of its high. I made a lot of money by investing in small cap index (ticker, IWM). Because of the risk involved, I don’t buy individual stock.
There is a specific tax definition of passive income, known as “passive activity” to the Internal Revenue Service. Passive income is any income you make without actively working or are materially involved. The IRS defines it as any rental activity or any business in which the taxpayer does not “materially participate.” Nonpassive activities, or active activities, are businesses in which the taxpayer works on a regular, continuous, and substantial basis.

Some people take it automated well before the year is up. When it converts, it converts. If you target the right people and you're able to create the right message that appeals to your audience, you might just hit a home run. An automated webinar often involves the creation of a webinar funnel. That includes, not only the webinar, but also the email sequences, and possibly a self-liquidating offer, and maybe some done-for-your services and up-sells.

The residual income approach offers both positives and negatives when compared to the more often used dividend discount and DCF methods. On the plus side, residual income models make use of data readily available from a firm's financial statements and can be used well with firms who do not pay dividends or do not generate positive free cash flow. Most importantly, as we discussed earlier, residual income models look at the economic profitability of a firm rather than just its accounting profitability. The biggest drawback of the residual income method is the fact that it relies so heavily on forward-looking estimates of a firm's financial statements, leaving forecasts vulnerable to psychological biases or historic misrepresentation of a firms financial statements.
One absolute valuation method which may not be so familiar to most, but is widely used by analysts is the residual income method. In this article, we will introduce you to the underlying basics behind the residual income model and how it can be used to place an absolute value on a firm. (The DDM is one of the most foundational of financial theories, but it's only as good as its assumptions. Check out Digging Into The Dividend Discount Model.)

Successful YouTubers choose a theme for their channel—ranging from humorous commentary to gardening. As you acquire subscribers to your channel, your number of views becomes more consistent, which in turn grows your residual income. While you’ll need to produce regular videos to maintain your following, a couple hours of filming and editing pales in comparison to the revenue you can generate with minimum effort.

I also noticed that in your passive income chart at the bottom that you don’t include your internet income other than sales from your book. Is there a reason for that? Do you not consider is passive because you are actively blogging all the time to create it? Or do you just not want readers to know how much money you generate from blogging activities?
When you build a business, you're giving up active income (instead of working for pay, I'm volunteering at my own business) for future active and passive income. In the meanwhile, you'll need a way to pay for your expenses. It could be that you're building a business on the side, so you still have a day job, or you're living on those savings. Either way, you need a cushion.
When I purchase an existing online business, I look for cash flow over the past year and where the money comes from. I want the sources to be more passive so that it does not take a lot of my time. Also, typically I will make an offer that is 18 – 24 months of profit so that I know that I will get my money back within the next two years. I hope that helps!
I also like the distinctions you make about the illusion of influence. I have control over most of my investments (real estate related) and have 10% in passive index funds. But I think as I continue to diversify, I like putting it into the two buckets of (1) I control (2) no control (stock market). I like that clarity. The illusion of control does add stress and hassle that detract from enjoying your life. Not worth extra returns to me.

When I purchase an existing online business, I look for cash flow over the past year and where the money comes from. I want the sources to be more passive so that it does not take a lot of my time. Also, typically I will make an offer that is 18 – 24 months of profit so that I know that I will get my money back within the next two years. I hope that helps!

I’ve never invested in real estate (except to live in), but am always intrigued by communities like FS who seem to have such a passion for it. My intrigue stems back to my earlier comments that the long term trends in appreciation in real estate are simply not very competitive versus equities, despite what Robert Kiyosaki had to say in his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

I’m selling a piece of land which costs me $7k in negative cash flow due to property taxes, I wrestle with the idea of using the 1031 exchange and put the proceeds into a rental. In this manner, I would save $70k in capital gains tax, and turn my negative $7k in cash flow into something positive. The idea of being a landlord though pains me. Just don’t know if it’s worth the hassle; clearly not if I make it back to the corporate world.

Building a smartphone or tablet app requires a fair amount of technical expertise, but it can pay off handsomely if successful. It doesn't have to be particularly complex or chock-full of features either; a simple one that solves a problem or is entertaining enough to attract users works fine. You never know what may suddenly become popular. For example, the minimalist game Flappy Bird was such a craze that at one point its developer was earning $50,000 dollars a day through in-app advertising. Of course, expecting a success like that is foolhardy, but one can always hope.

Unfortunately, I can’t answer that conclusively one way or the other. It all depends on you, what you like to do, your work ethic, personality, etc. If you are a good writer perhaps you could write a book and make money that way. Or, you could start your own website and do affiliate marketing. Just because you are young it doesn’t mean you can’t make money doing at least a few of these ideas. I wish you luck in your money making efforts!
When done correctly, investing can be a great way to generate residual income. There are many different types of investments you can choose from to earn income passively — whether you choose to purchase high dividend stocks, try peer to peer lending, or choose to invest in real estate. No matter what you choose to do, make sure you do your research first and talk to a tax advisor to ensure you understand your specific situation and what option is best for you.